I was exhausted, emotionally drained, and empty, but I knew I would never sleep. I'd been bouncing along letting life and the wind carry me wherever they would until I'd smacked face first into a brick wall today. It had left a figurative knot in my head, in my heart, and in my gut. Until I figured out what to do with that knot, there wouldn't be any rest. My knees had stiffened up while I sat hunched against the door, and I unfolded myself with some difficulty. I stomped the feeling back into my numb legs until the pins and needles distracted me from the lump in my throat. I fished my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and flipped it open, punching in Ranger's number on speed dial. He answered on the second ring. "Yo, yourself. Can you come over? I need to talk to you."

I made my way to the bathroom, my body bent over like an old woman, barely able to move. I splashed some water on my face and brushed my teeth, then hazarded a look in the mirror. Not such a good idea. Stress and tears never do much for my face anyway, and my mascara and eyeliner had all run together into one blackened mess till I looked like I had raccoon eyes, and my face was mottled and blotchy. I grabbed a washcloth and scrubbed my face bare, which didn't do anything good for the blotchiness, but at least it took care of the raccoon eyes. Sometimes you take what you can get. I scraped my hair back into a haphazard ponytail and called it good. When I emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, my own personal Batman was seated on my couch, looking for all the world like he belonged there. I started to get irritated about the ease with which he habitually broke into my apartment, but didn't have the energy. My heart just wasn't in it. I settled for a non-committal "Hey," instead.

"Babe."

Great. I desperately needed to find out what was going on with me, with him, with us, and he was making me pull words out of him one at a time. I didn't have time for that shit. "Joe and I broke up," I said baldly.

He gave his patented infinitesimal nod in response. He was not making this easy.

"So Joe no longer stands between us. Where do we go from here?" There. That should be plain enough for anyone, even Batman.

Ranger genuinely looked surprised. "Morelli was never an obstacle."

Now it was my turn to look surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Just that. That Morelli was never an obstacle. He was never the reason we weren't together," he said quietly.

News to me. "Then what was the reason?" I asked.

"You were."

"I don't understand." And I truly didn't.

Ranger leaned forward and balanced his elbows on his knees, then blew out his breath in a long sigh. He said nothing for a long moment, then nodded his head. "Okay, let me explain something. I'm not used to having to do that, so it may take a little bit. Stay with me, okay?"

I nodded. An actual explanation. Thank God. I certainly needed one after all the tapdancing we'd been doing around each other for the past several years.

"I don't believe in—Wait, that's not right," he cut himself off and started again. "I don't make moves on married women," he explained. I frowned. What did that have to do with me? I'd been divorced from Dickie for years, since long before I'd met Ranger. Seeing my confusion he continued. "No married women, but up until they're married, it's fair game. You see?" I shook my head. "Okay, let me start over. One time, back when I was still in the Army, my friend started going out with this girl. She was beautiful. Smart, funny, didn't take any shit off of anybody." He smiled in remembrance, and that smile made me uneasy. "They'd been going out a couple of weeks, and I thought to myself if I didn't make a play for her, I'd regret it the rest of my life." He paused, lost in thought for a few minutes, then picked up the thread of his story. "So I did. I pulled out all the stops. We had a … connection, I guess you'd call it. An awareness. Physical spark. Like what we have," he looked right into my eyes finally, and I nodded.

"What happened?" Part of me wanted to know and part of me didn't, but I had to ask.

"We'd spent the day hanging out. My buddy was on duty, but I wasn't. I'd made sure I wasn't. And I'd spent the day with her, getting closer, letting the sexual tension build. When I thought the time was right, I made my move. I leaned in close and kissed her. We were out on the beach, the sun was going down over the water, the lights were just starting to come on in the distance. Very romantic." Ranger shook his head slowly and he smiled mockingly.

"And she let loose the sweetest roundhouse punch I've ever seen in my life and knocked me flat on my ass, right there on the sand."

I surprised us both with a watery little laugh.

"Yeah," Ranger said. "Then she got right up in my face and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. That she was crazy about Point, and she was talking love with a capital L, and I had no business messing with that. Told me she'd never felt like that about anybody before, and wasn't about to trade it for some quick roll in the sand. It didn't matter to her what kind of attraction there was between us, because she already knew what she wanted."

"What did you do?" I asked.

Ranger shook his head.

"No, I want to know. What did you do? Did you keep on coming after her anyway, the way you did with me? Did you make sure your buddy found out about the two of you? Was it a repeat of today? What did you do?" I was angry, I was hurt, and at this point misery was damn fond of company. "Did you—"

"I got drunk."

That shut me up, at least momentarily. "You don't drink," I protested.

"Not anymore."

I sat there expectantly, never looking away from him. I deserved an answer, and he wasn't leaving without giving me one. My determination must have shown in my face because he stood up and started pacing, his back turned to me as he started to speak.

"I got drunk, and I picked up this girl. And if I'd been sober, I would have realized she was way too young, and way too innocent, and way out of her element. But I didn't. I took her down on the beach, and I wasn't so drunk I didn't realize she was a virgin." He finally turned back to me, as he knew I realized he was talking about Rachel, Julie's mother. "And I cleaned her up and took her home, and made sure she knew how to get in touch with me if that night had any lasting repercussions."

I closed my eyes and nodded my head.

"Yeah, a few weeks later, she realized she was pregnant. So I arranged leave, went home to Miami and married her. Gave Julie my name, and made sure she never wanted for anything. And I hated it. I hated every single waking moment of it. I hated being tied to someone else, I hated the accountability, I hated the feeling like I couldn't breathe. All of it. And I swore I'd never do that again. End of story."

"And now?" I asked.

"And nothing's changed."

"Everything has changed," I argued. "Joe broke up with me."

"You still don't get it," he said.

"Then explain it to me!" I demanded.

"Morelli was never what kept us apart, Babe. You were. You didn't want me enough to dump Morelli and come to my bed, and you didn't want Morelli enough to tell me to go to hell. It's not about picking the best contestant, Babe, it's about knowing who and what you want. You wanted my attention, and we both know it. Yet you stayed in Morelli's bed, so you obviously still wanted him, too."

He sat back down, then, and regarded me quietly across the wide divide of my sofa. "Frankly, I never had much of a problem with it. I figured if you wanted monogamy and commitment, you knew where to go. I've never been the 'till death do us part' type, Babe, and I've been honest with you about that. I'm much more the 'as long as we're both happy' type. I've done the marriage gig, and I hated it. Every single minute of it. And I'll never go back there. It's not who I am."

"But you're talking about a forced marriage, Ranger, when you were really young. You don't know—"

"I do know. Babe, I didn't come to this realization when I married Rachel. I've always felt this way. It's part of who and what I am."

"But still, now that you're older, maybe—" Okay, now he was really starting to piss me off. He was laughing at me. I looked around for something to hit him with, preferably something heavy and blunt.

"I'm not laughing at you," he protested. "I'm really not, okay? It's just that you sounded a lot like my mother."

His mother. Terrific. Just what I'd always wanted.

Ranger made a real effort to smooth his features. "I have a brother just younger than me, name's Marco." I nodded. I had known he had at least one brother and a couple of sisters, but that was about it. At least I had a name. "A couple of years ago, Marco came out to my parents." My eyes got big. Wow. "Yeah," Ranger continued. "Being gay is not widely accepted in the Latino community. It was really hard for my parents. Marco just couldn't take living the lie any more, though, and he knew he had to tell them. My father didn't say anything, just got up and walked out of the room. My mom, though, was convinced she could 'fix' him. Kept asking him how he knew he was gay if he'd never been with a woman. How if he just met the right woman, everything would work out."

Ranger moved in front of me and cradled my cold hands in his warm ones, sitting back on his haunches and looking up into my face. "Marco knew what he was, though. And I know what I am, Babe. If I could change for anyone, I'd do it for you. But I can't."

"You mean you won't," I accused him.

"It amounts to the same thing. I always knew where you were going with asking me what I thought about marriage, and about relationships. I didn't want to hurt you then, and I don't want to hurt you now, but my answer hasn't changed. I think relationships are great for people who want them. So is marriage. But neither of those are for me. I don't want to change that—I'm comfortable with the choices I've made and with who I am. I don't need fixing."

"Okay," I whispered. He'd been straight with me, I had to give him that, and if his veracity had made me uncomfortable; well, I really had noone else to blame but myself.

"Listen, I know the timing sucks, but I've got to go up to Boston for a few days."

"You spend a lot of time there now," I remarked.

He actually looked chagrined. "Yeah, well, I need to check in on Maggie. Some things were going on that need taking care of."

"Maggie?" I asked, really hating myself for going there, but what the hell—the day was already in the toilet anyway. It wasn't like another revelation could make it too much worse.

"The woman I told you about. Her name is Maggie, well, Magdalena. Tank and I check in on her once in awhile to make sure she's doing okay, take care of things if she needs it."

"What about your friend?"

"Killed by a roadside bomb during his second tour in the middle east," Ranger replied, his face giving nothing away, but I could tell by the tightness in his jaw that he still felt the loss keenly.

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling inadequate.

"So am I. They were really happy together, you know? Two little girls who don't even remember their daddy." He shook his head and stood up to leave. "I'll call you when I get back, make sure you're okay." He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on the forehead. "You get some rest, do some thinking, figure out what you want from your life, Stephanie. I'm sorry if you got hurt in all this. I never meant to hurt you, or be part of anything that did. I'll still be here for you whenever you need me. Don't forget that."

I nodded sadly, and realized he was right. I had a lot of thinking to do.

Vinnie wasn't happy when I told him I was taking some time off. My last big score had netted me a decent cushion where I didn't need to go garbage runs, as I'd come to think of some of my messier captures. At least not for awhile. I'd also resorted to turning off my cell phone and unplugging my land line. After a frantic middle of the night visit from my mother, I'd agreed to check in with her every couple of days, but that was it. Push had finally come to shove, and I was having to do some serious thinking about my life, what I wanted out of it, and even what I wanted to be when I grew up. I realized right off that I'd been a woman without a clue or a plan for a long time, and that kind of haphazard approach, letting life just happen to me instead of being an active participant, wasn't really who I was. Or at least, it wasn't who I wanted to be.

I had kind of fallen into bounty hunting for Vinnie when my job went south. It had paid the bills, but it was basically a hand to mouth existence, and depended a lot on the vagaries of fate. Some days I hated my job, other days I got off on the adrenaline. Sometimes I felt like I had gone from one extreme to the other. I'd opted for safety and security first with marriage to Dickie Orr, then a safe but boring job buying women's discount briefs for EE Martin. When both of those had exploded in my face and I was down to hocking my appliances for food money, I'd gone to the other extreme. Chasing accused felons had never been something I'd aspired to. I'd taken that first job for Vinnie out of desperation, and landed Joe Morelli squarely back into my life after a long hiatus. We'd danced around for awhile before settling into a reasonable facsimile of a relationship. Somehow, several years later, I was still aimlessly dancing: with the job, with Joe, with everything. I lacked direction, ambition, and goals, and that was a pretty sorry state of affairs for a woman in her thirties. Granted, I wasn't that far into my thirties, but still.

So what did I want? That was the question of a lifetime. My lifetime, anyway. And that brought me back to the phone blackout. I didn't need to hear what my mother wanted, or what Lula, or Connie, or MaryLou wanted. Not even what Ranger wanted, assuming he was back from Boston, or what Joe wanted, assuming he would ever speak to me again. This was about my life, my choices, my decisions. I had to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. The one decision I'd come to thus far was that I knew what I didn't want: I didn't want to be aimless any more. I wanted to be in charge of my own destiny. And I didn't want my happiness to depend on a man or even multiple men. I had to be who I was for my own self and my own sake, not trying to fit myself into some mold I decided would make me more appealing to the men in my life. Correction: the men who had been, past tense, in my life. I hadn't heard from either Ranger or Joe since "Black Thursday" as I'd come to think of that day two weeks ago.

I hated to admit it, even to myself, but my need for male validation was more than just a little scary. Even though I was feeling more than a little lost without Joe or Ranger as my anchors, it was probably good for me to do this on my own, without hormones clouding my thinking. Probably.

Probably be the mother of my children. Probably get married. Suddenly, Joe's half-assed promises and probablies made me see red. I remembered the wide-eyed girl who had laid down behind the counter at the damn bakery, convinced that the sun rose and set in Joe Morelli's smile. I could still feel every kiss, every touch, every tingle as he'd taken my body on a ride I couldn't even imagine before that night. With every beat of my heart and every contraction of my body in the throes of its very first orgasm, I had built a dream. Joe telling me he loved me, only me. My father walking me down the aisle at the same church where we'd both made our first communion, with all the girls in my high school who had ever looked down on me or made me feel stupid looking on and grinding their teeth in frustration that I, Stephanie Plum, had managed to land the elusive Joe Morelli. Joe leading me up the stairs to our first apartment, where we'd make love all day, and I would be magically transformed into some domestic goddess who put Martha Stewart to shame. Probably we would have a perfect life.

Instead he had hitched up his jeans and waltzed out of my life without a backward glance, but with a telling poem on Mario's wall. I'd felt so stupid. And all those girls that I had gloated over in my dream wedding instead were pointing their fingers at me and laughing behind my back because I'd been foolish enough to think I was enough for a guy like Joe Morelli. It didn't seem to matter to my bruised and battered inner child that Joe had grown up, had told me he loved me and meant it, and that we had the chance for a life together but I'd been too scared to go after it. The adult Joe I loved still had to pay for the scars caused by the boy Joe who had left me behind on a cold concrete floor.

I'd pulled myself together with a lot of tears and a lot of self-loathing, and managed to squeak through college, then married the first hapless jackass who asked me. On the surface, Dickie Orr was perfect for his chosen role: making Stephanie Plum look like she'd made it. He'd been good looking, well-respected, an up and coming lawyer with a solid Burg background. He was everything I was supposed to want. I'd walked down that aisle toward him determined to be a good wife, a spectacular lover, and make our lives just as perfect as the one I'd dreamed up during my first Morelli-induced orgasm. Granted, the church pews hadn't been packed with my high school rivals, but there were enough of them there wearing suitably jealous looks on their faces that it had been pretty gratifying.

Instead of my happily ever after, though, I'd had the rude awakening of finding Dickie screwing skanky Joyce Barnhardt in the middle of my dining room table. When I'd dumped his sorry ass, then and only then had the well-meaning Burg grapevine come alive with the news that Dickie had been screwing a whole raft of women before Joyce ever entered the picture. Suddenly, those jealous faces I'd seen at our wedding looked mocking in my memory. How many of those women had Dickie done while we were married? How many tongues were wagging about "Poor Stephanie" who was such a loser that she hadn't even been able to keep her husband interested till the honeymoon was over?

At least Morelli's writing on the sub shop wall had been complimentary. Dicki's unspoken but obvious preference for skank whores like Joyce over his own wife left me with no doubt about just how far down I ranked. When your husband chose Joyce over you, you had to be pretty bad.

Still, I'd kept my head high, and plowed through Dickie in divorce court much the way I had plowed into Joe Morelli with my father's Buick. I had made sure it hurt him where it counted the most—his wallet, his reputation, and his pride. There was little else I could do. Still, I kept my head held high. I was a modern woman, I was independent, and I didn't need any man to validate my worth, thank you very much. And I kept on doing the responsible, sensible thing. I bought underpants for the plus size and pretended I was working in the fashion business. If I never set the world on fire, at least I was gainfully employed and managed to live a respectable life.

Then that was gone, too. How many times can you look yourself in the mirror and say, "That wasn't my fault," before your inner Jiminy Cricket starts catcalling you? Karma was one thing, but at a certain point you start seeing a pattern whether you want to or not. First Morelli didn't want me, then Loser Dickie didn't want me, then my stupid job at stupid EE Martin didn't want stupid me. Terrific. Three strikes and you're supposed to be out. Only I didn't know how to be out. I didn't know how to quit. My lungs kept working, and my legs kept walking, and while there were times I would have dearly loved to get the hell off the merry-go-round that was my life, I couldn't find the exit sign.

And so I'd stooped to bounty huntering for my beastiality-obsessed poor excuse for a cousin Vinnie. And I'd had to blackmail him to do it. Great. And I'd gotten my very first skip. And Joe Morelli back in my life, after a few initial fits and starts that still gave me the heebie jeebies when I stopped to think about it. I had never asked why Joe had pulled his periodic disappearing acts early in our newly-resurrected relationship, and he'd never offered. But I've always been blessed with an overactive imagination, and I could come up with plenty of possible scenarios, none of them positive.

Then I'd fallen back into Morelli's bed with remarkable ease, and awakened the next morning feeling like my happily ever after was finally about to start. I'd traipsed down the stairs ready to do my very best Martha Stewart meets Linda Lovelace impression. I'd squeeze him fresh orange juice and make him waffles, fold his laundry and pour his coffee, and do it all while wearing a tiny lace garter and a come-hither expression. I would be so perfect that he'd be instantly bowled over by me, just like he had been the night before. Our perfect life would finally start. Everything else had really just been a prelude to this moment, and now all the drama and the angst would have the ultimate payoff.

Only it hadn't worked out that way. Instead of looking at me with longing and dropping to one knee to pledge undying love and devotion, along with the presentation of a spectacular yet tasteful ring, Joe had looked grouchy and wary, and definitely put off by the prospect of blissful cohabitation. I'd recovered more quickly this time, and my momentary lapse of good judgment had rapidly been replaced by good old-fashioned anger, mostly directed at him. Mostly. Part of me, though, was scared spitless that I'd fallen, once again, so easily into the whole happily ever after scenario without ever seeing any of the pitfalls littering the way.

We'd eventually come to an understanding, of sorts. Joe with his probablies, and me with my panic attacks any time the conversation turned to marriage or commitment. No way was I ever going to be led down that primrose path again. I was determined. And still I slogged away at my poor excuse for a job, doing my poor excuse for a bounty hunter thing. And the more messes I got into, the more angry Joe got. And the more angry he got, the more I resisted anything and everything he suggested. He'd had his shot at being the boss of me, and he'd blown it. See if I was going to let him try and tell me what to do now. Of course, I'd nearly gotten myself maimed and killed on a regular basis with my stubborn refusal to listen to any kind of reason from him, and then he'd thrown in the towel. No surprise, really. I'd always expected it, and if I'd helped it along my own self with my stubborn pride and tenacious rebellion, so what? Probably it would have happened sooner or later anyway. Probably. But I'd never really know, because I'd fallen straight into bed with Ranger.

And Ranger had been straight with me that he didn't want a relationship. No strings, no expectations. Just a heady combination of hormones and friendship. And it had been good. More than good, honestly. But when it came right down to it, as I'd often observed to myself, you could take the girl out of the Burg, but you couldn't take the Burg out of the girl. Ultimately, no strings sex didn't hold a lot of appeal for me. I wanted the strings, I wanted the commitment, I wanted the expectations and demands of a real relationship. And Ranger didn't. And I had always known that. In the meantime, of course, his attention had been a real salve to my pride and ego. While I'd convinced myself that the other shoe might someday drop with Morelli, it had been nice to have a "go to" guy waiting in the wings.

The only trouble with that reasoning, of course, was that I'd never actually reasoned it out. I was going with my gut. Granted, my gut has done me some great favors in the past, and made me one lucky bounty hunter. After all these years, I still wasn't particularly good at my job, but I had luck. I had good instincts, at least about finding criminals. Trouble is, I'd come to rely on my instincts instead of my thought processes, and my whole life had turned into one big mess. Instincts are great things, but they have to be balanced by intellect. I'd been doing a piss poor job of doing any thinking and planning while I was following my instincts. Somehow, a part of my brain had gotten the message that Joe wasn't going to drop any shoes on me, that he'd finally grown up and loved me the way I wanted, with no reservations. But the instinctive part of my brain somehow missed the memo, and was still operating on the idea that Joe would leave me, and I didn't want to be left an embarrassed, heartbroken, laughingstock. So I'd followed my hormones and played around with Ranger, telling myself when I bothered to think about it that since we had only had actual sex when Joe and I had broken up, nothing else counted.

Trouble is, I wasn't a kid any more. And neither were Joe or Ranger. And in real adult life, everything counts. Everything. And it turns out, the only person I'd been deluding all this time was me. So here I sat, in my poor excuse for an apartment with its just-out-of-college bohemian mismatch and mishmash of furniture, on a leave of absence from a job I have a love-hate relationship with at best, and an empty bed mocking me from the other room. And, oh yeah, an empty heart. Worst of all, I didn't know if I had to strength to pull myself up by my bootstraps and start over still one more time. I had already done that so many times, the very idea of starting over scared me to death.

But once again, into the fray. Once again, I couldn't find my exit sign. So I'd ride this merry-go-round till the bitter end. I might go down, but I wouldn't go down without a fight. Resolutely, I switched on my cell phone, and hit the speed dial.

"Hey, it's me." I was a little hesitant. I'd been out of commission for awhile, and wasn't too sure of my reception. "Any chance we could get together for a couple of hours? I really need to talk to you." My eyes teared up at the ready agreement that came right back at me. In for a penny, in for a pound. I'd have to face my ghosts sometime. "How about Pino's in an hour?" I closed the phone and meandered over to the bathroom, flipping the light switch and staring hard into the mirror. I'd heard once that we really only see people the first time we meet them. After that, our brains fill in the details and we just see the memory we have of those people. I wondered if it was possible for that to happen with yourself? How many times had I looked into this mirror, ostensibly checking the details of my appearance, and only seen what I remembered, the memory of who Stephanie used to be? It wasn't about the mirror, of course, and it reflected the usual, expected me, hair a little longer than usual since I was overdue for a cut, skin a little more pale, faint blue shadows under my eyes. Not bad, I thought, but the emotional toll of the past few weeks was definitely there. As I applied my makeup and fixed my hair with fingers that were a little less deft than usual, I determined to make an effort to look at the real Stephanie, and monitor what she was doing and the choices she was making. I was done with living my life on autopilot. I was going to own my life and be more conscious of my choices. I finally stood back and surveyed the final results of my slightly out of practice efforts. I'd definitely looked better, but I shouldn't scare off small children either. I gave myself a small nod. Good enough for a Friday night at Pino's. Those bootstraps were none too comfortable, but they'd serve once again to pull me up. I had my armor of makeup firmly in place, if a little smudged around the edges. I was through cowering in my apartment, hiding. It might have taken me awhile to regroup this time, but regroup I would, and I'd come out better for it.

In the meantime, I was actually hungry for the first time in days. No more scavenging the kitchen shelves for whatever would keep me alive. I'd even briefly considered going the Ranger route of health food, complete with tofu and pine nuts and sprouts, then changed my mind. The point of all this self-examination was to figure out who and what I wanted, not turn myself into what I thought someone else wanted. And what I wanted right now, tonight, was the comfort and familiarity of Pino's, situated in the heart of the Burg. Sure, tongues would wag, and some might even point and laugh at hapless Stephanie once again falling flat on her proverbial ass in front of the world. The point it is, it was my ass and my world and I was going to own it.

I pulled into the first parking space I saw, took a deep, bracing breath, and sauntered through the old familiar door with as much aplomb as I could muster. My eyes flicked quickly over the crowded tables. Granted, a few faces gawked, and a few more looked less than friendly, but by and large people were too busy with their own little lives to pay much attention to me. Probably it had always been like that and I'd been mired too deep in my own issues to realize it. I gave an intentionally breezy smile to the gawkers, ignored the unfriendly glances, and picked my way slowly through the crowd to a small table in the back. I'd spotted the familiar leather coat as soon as I'd hit the door.

"Hey," I said, hand on the shoulder, intending to slide around to the other side of the booth.